Observations on the 9th World Congress of Sociology, Uppsala, 1978.

This article reports on the state of sociology based on observations made at the 9th World Congress of Sociology held 1978 in Uppsala, Sweden. At the opening session of the Congress, Tom Bottomore, president of the International Sociological Association, described the present state of sociology. The reconstruction work of the post-war years had probably helped to create a belief in economic growth, which was clearly reflected in sociology. The belief in a common goal and in one single course of development, however, had been lost. This could be seen in the methodological orientation of sociology. The predominant trends at present are the various Marxian schools and phenomenology, opposed to which are the positivist schools, with structuralism as the fourth trend. Another way of analyzing the state of sociology is to study the papers presented at the Congress and the reception they got, and on this basis look for areas of emphasis in sociological research as regards both subject matter and regional factors. To do this, it is necessary to calculate the number of papers presented in the Congress; then analyze the questionnaires distributed to Finnish participants during in the Congress.